Prince of Peace

Council Minutes May 2015

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Prince of Peace Lutheran Church

Council Meeting

May 19, 2015

Present:   Pastor Chad Brekke, Called Associate Pastor Natalia Terfa, Sue LaGue, Tim Marker, Christina Jobe, Julia Sevald, Richard Habstritt, Chuck Krych, Jeff Ampstrup, Linda Forkey, and Jeremy Hanson

Absent: Rachel Henderson, Ryan Ohm

Call to Order:  President Sue LaGue called the meeting to order

Devotions:  Christina Jobe led us in devotions.

Highs and Lows:  Chuck, Jeremy and Sue shared.

Adoption of Agenda: A motion was made by Richard Habstritt and seconded by Chuck Krych to adopt the Council agenda.  Motion approved.

Approval of Previous Minutes:  A motion was made by Chuck Krych and seconded by Tim Marker to approve the minutes from the April 21, 2015 Council meeting as written.  Motion approved.

Reports of Officers:

Treasurer’s Report:

Notable April activity:

  • For the month of April, receipts were greater than expenses. The general/building fund activity for the month was a gain of $25,136. This is favorable to budget and prior year by $19,500 and $19,240, respectively.
  • Total April offerings were favorable to budget by $14,717 and to prior year by $17,779. Thrivent Choice dollars were also favorable to both budget and 2014 in the month of April.
  • Overall, expenses are favorable to budget and prior year. The favorability to budget is mainly related to timing of some benefit expenses in the month.
  • April YTD, receipts are greater than expenses by $23,848. This net gain is $28,439 better than budget and $2,692 greater than last year through April.
  • The general fund cash balance available for use is $69,804 at the end of April.
  • The only designated fund with significant activity in April was the WAPO fund.

President’s Report:

Natalia’s ordination is May 31.  The Bishop will be here.  Planning is underway for the reception.

Vice-President’s Report:

Some members of the Leave a Legacy committee think the fund could perform better.  The committee is still working on the by-laws; there is still some disagreement about how the funds should be designated.  There has been a $500 request for Leave a Legacy funds for Natalia’s ordination.  A motion was made by Richard Habstritt and seconded by Linda Forkey to approve these funds.  Motion approved.

Tim spoke about his attendance at the recent Synod Assembly.  The theme centered around “Word Became Flesh and Went Into the Neighborhood” – how can we extend our church body into the local community?  A lot of churches are doing a lot of good things.  Hopefully we can continue to have discussions on what our role is in the community.  Brian McLaren was a keynote speaker, and our own Ryan Ohm lead an assembly prayer.  Overall, it was a very positive and encouraging experience.

Secretary’s Report: None

Ministry Team Reports

Property Report

  • Plan to move water softener to boiler room and soften the hot water only.       Plan to install a larger water meter.
  • New contract for lawn service: AAA All American Lawn and Landscaping.       They will do mowing and fertilization/weed spraying for an estimated savings of $750 for the season.
  • Looking at snow removal contract.
  • Evergreen trees and lilac bushes are all cut and gone.
  • Egan Electric will be fixing the West Broadway sign, replacing the security light outside the boiler room, and installing a variable speed switch on the fan in the CLC. We will be receiving an $85 rebate.
  • The steel doors that need replacing and the sanctuary fire door problem will not be considered until this fall.
  • Will install stained plywood on wall of youth room to hang frames made by Sunday School kids. The windows will be covered by Dan Ficken.

Spiritual Development             

The Spiritship committee continues with the “Called” stories, and this month is about Allison Hill from Prince of Peace, and in particular, her volunteer work with teens at TreeHouse. Allison’s story is on display in the Welcome Center. Thank you to Sara Schreiber, Bev Alsleben, and Candy Kvamme for producing these monthly stories. Spiritship continues to focus on the Sunday Morning Experience team this month. Georgia Larson put together a 4 minute video spot about what it takes to make a Sunday morning happen at our church and how many jobs that entails. The hope is to run the video during services for at least a couple of Sundays in May, and Pastor Chad worked the video into the end of his sermons on the 10th. Georgia plans to create more videos this summer from “Camp Tell The Good News”, with our POP kids. Following services, we continue to have a table for volunteers to sign up and to answer questions about VolunteerSpot. Jim Knuckey has made phone calls to a number of POP members who have made their names available for volunteer hours, and Chuck Dube helped gather this list. The Council discussed how much, if any, dollars would be available for promotional materials such as posters, magnets, graphic design for a logo, camera equipment, t-shirts, etc. The Spiritship committee does have some designated funds. Any branding should be a coherent message – T-shirt logos should be PoP logo/promotion. It was suggested to talk to Nikk or Nate regarding camera equipment.                                       

Sunday Morning Experience

  1. Conducted April 20, 2015 SME Committee Meeting led by Chuck Dube
    1. Key Topics/Actions
      1. Review Spiritual Development Project presented by G Larson last meeting.
      2. Review Volunteer Spot and how it works
        1. Team members just want to know what to do
        2. Team members don’t want to use sign up
        3. Seems like it could be extra work
        4. Communion Server Glitches
      3. Pastor’s Chad and Natalia to communicate what Volunteer Spot is to the congregation. There still is an abundance of misunderstanding between how it was being used.
      4. Team Leaders to reach out to each member of their team and discuss Volunteer Spot more in depth.
      5. Usher Teams need to be educated on how Volunteer Spot will be deployed in the very near future
      6. Greeting is very important – dedicated focus against this needs to take place – Leadership from Chad and Natalia to share
      7. CPR Training – Survival Network provides free CPR – They are survivors and show how to do chest compressions – The training is Free.   Can train up to 30 people.   Do not need actual certifications on this.
      8. The next SME Team Meeting was on 5/18/15 at 6:00pm – Ice Cream Social –26 people came – a lot of questions asked about Volunteer Spot and a lot of people are more comfortable with it.

Congregational Care   

Linda will be calling individuals who work on prayer chain and new members to see if they have questions.  People are signing up for the church picture directory.                                            

Outreach

Regular Outreach Meeting held in May; next meeting will be on June 9.   Here a list up completed and upcoming events and projects the Committee is working on:

  1. On Monday, April 27 we assisted in serving a free meal at Lord of Master Church in Brooklyn Center. At the meal in March, we fed 132 people with 6 volunteers from Prince of Peace
  2. The Reading program at Park Brook with members of the congregation and staff participating will end the second week in May. Another successful year for this program and hope we have more volunteers in the fall when this program will resume.
  3. On Friday, May 1 Prince of Peace prepared and served free meals for about 85 people with 15 volunteers at River of Life Church in North Minneapolis.   This program has been done for 25 Years by Prince of Peace and the past 16 years lead by Jack & Elaine Zimmer. Great Job.
  4. Our Highway Clean Up – “Junk and Jeans” was Sunday, May 17.
  5. Axis made 1000 Sandwiches on April 22 through the direction of Brent Haglund.
  6. The Blood Drive on April 27 was a tremendous success.   We had 28 whole units and 4 Red units (double units) for a total of 36 units.
  7. Some Events in future will include:       Park Brook       Cancer Sunday Event in October       Highway Clean up (fall)       FMSC Mega Event in Feb, 2016 through Bama
  8.        Junk & Treat   working with Katie Rykal
  9.        Hope Lodge in the fall
  10.        Rally Sunday — working with Katie Rykal
  11.        Brooklyn Avenues

Community Life                                                                                  

No report – Rachel absent

Pastoral Reports: 

Pastor Chad’s Report:

Hoping that new daycare will be a good fit.  We’re in latter stages of negotiating with them.  Thriving program with 35 kids, serving local area families.  They would like to start on June15.

Moving in positive direction with people’s giving and involvement.  We always have more resources than we could possibly use – question is are we generously giving these resources.

Called Associate Pastor Natalia’s Report:

There’s been a lot happening around here lately!  Here are my highlights:   Spring GroupLife is almost done and providing a lot of great conversation points for participants. It’s been really great to hear how the videos are being discussed.  After a short break in June, and July, new group leader recruitment and training will begin in August and we’ll kick off another year of GL the first week of October!

Summer planning is fully underway, with our summer worship services ready to go.  Our midweek services begin June 3 and we are hoping to have a great and thought–provoking series this summer called “Voices.”  We’ve invited speakers, teachers, and preachers from throughout the community and beyond to come and share a word about faith and life.  The line-up is looking really great and I can’t wait to hear from some of these gifted preachers and speakers.  Join us, Wednesdays at 6:30 this summer.

Almost ordained!  I was called to POP on May 3 and so the paperwork and conversations with the Synod office continue.  The Service of my Ordination will be at POP at 1pm on May 31st.  I hope you can be there to celebrate this milestone for Prince of Peace and for me!

Unfinished Business: 

In May a motion was made by Christina Jobe and seconded by Linda Forkey to approve Leave a Legacy requests to match giving for the Nepal earthquake relief up to $1000 and for $50 for Memorial Day flowers for the altar.  The motions and voting were conducted via email.  Motion approved.

New Business:

The Council discussed an article by Rachel Held Evans and her experience moving away from the church and then going back to the church.  She felt some churches were too fluffy and some were too aggressive.  The authenticity of the church is what drew her back.  Younger folks struggle with feeling part of a church community.  At PoP we need to continue to question, discover, and strive for making/keeping our church a vital community.

Action Items:

Need help with meals on Wednesday nights during the summer.  The Council plans to do the meal on Wed, June 10.  The grilling (burgers and hot dogs) should start at 5:15 p.m.  Sue will contact Eric at Cub Foods regarding donating the food.  Jeff volunteered to get groceries the night before.

A motion was made by Julia Sevald and seconded by Tim Marker to adjourn the meeting.  Motion approved.  Meeting adjourned.

Respectfully submitted,

Christina Jobe

Council Secretary